On February 20, 1575, carrying credentials from King D. Sebastiao, Paulo Dias de Novais landed at the island of Luanda in command of a fleet of seven ships carrying a hundred families of colonists and 400 soldiers. In 1605, the Governor, Manuel Cerveira Pereira, conferred the status of city on the settlement of Sao Paulo, making Luanda the first city to be founded by Europeans on the West Coast of sub-Saharan Africa.
4,700 km. Democratic Republic of the Congo / Central African Republic / Angola / Republic of the Congo / Tanzania / Cameroon / Zambia / Burundi / Rwanda. For a time known as the Zaire River) is the largest river in Western Central Africa. Its overall length of 4,700 km (2,922 miles) makes it the second longest in Africa (after the Nile).